Christa Pike was nearly taken off life support before waking, lawyers say

Death-row inmate who survived execution by lethal injection is said to be ‘angry and confused’ about what happened.

Randy Spivey, a lawyer for Christa Pike, speaks to reporters outside a courthouse in Nashville, Tennessee, on October 7, 2026 [Seth Herald/Reuters]

Lawyers for Christa Pike , the Tennessee woman who survived a botched execution attempt, have said that their client was nearly disconnected from life support before she awoke this week in a United States hospital.

In a news conference on Wednesday, Randy Spivey, who represents Pike, described her as feeling “angry and confused” about what happened.

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“Monday night, our understanding was that Christa was brain dead, and life support would be removed the next day,” Spivey told reporters.

But on Tuesday, he said, “Christa woke up and began talking.”

Spivey added that Pike did not seem to recall the execution attempt itself. Upon waking up in her hospital room in Nashville, she reportedly asked those in the room, “Where am I?” and “Who are you?”

Pike had been scheduled to die by lethal injection on September 30. But after receiving two doses of pentobarbital, she remained alive, becoming the first person believed to have survived such an injection in the US.

The incident has renewed questions about the use of the death penalty in the country and its legality.

Critics have long called such procedures a violation of the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments”.

Prior to her execution date, Pike’s lawyers had also sought to have her sentence commuted, citing concerns about her mental health. She had been convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 for participating in the murder of a classmate, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.

On Wednesday, her legal team described her as cooperating with Tennessee officials during the scheduled execution.

“She was kind and polite as they worked for an hour, stabbing her arm with needle after needle, and then she felt the burn of the pentobarbital,” Spivey said.

“And then she woke up in a hospital surrounded by people she didn’t know.”

While the lethal injections were meant to go into Pike’s veins, experts have speculated that the pentobarbital instead pooled in the tissue of her arm. Her arms and hands remain heavily swollen and covered in blisters, Spivey added.

It is unclear whether the state of Tennessee will attempt to execute Pike a second time.

But Spivey has indicated he and Pike’s other lawyers will once more seek to have her sentence commuted, based on the suffering she experienced during the botched execution.

On Wednesday, in anticipation of such legal proceedings, Nashville Judge I’Ashea Myles ordered the state to save evidence from the execution attempt, including drugs, syringes and IV lines, as well as recordings and any communication records between officials.

Since the execution attempt, Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Lee has also ordered a halt to carrying out other death penalty sentences. Another execution had been scheduled in the state for later this year.

“Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective,” Lee said in a statement.

In the wake of the botched execution, the state’s top prison official, Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada, has announced he will resign this month.

Pike’s lethal injection was not the only botched execution in Tennessee this year.

Governor Lee granted a one-year reprieve to Tony Carruthers, whom officials attempted to execute in May 2026. But after an hour of trying, they could not find a vein to connect an IV for the pentobarbital, and the execution was suspended.

Other states, however, have signalled they would proceed with carrying out death penalty cases despite the Tennessee incidents.

A Texas court refused to halt the execution by pentobarbital of 46-year-old Jamaal Howard, scheduled for Wednesday, despite appeals from his lawyers citing Pike’s botched execution.

Those opposed to the death penalty have argued that such executions can cause unnecessary suffering. In Pike’s case, she reportedly kicked a sheet off her body during the execution attempt and said she was feeling pain.

Before her scheduled execution, Pike had warned authorities about the difficulty of finding veins in her arm and had even requested to be executed by firing squad.

据称，一名死囚在注射死刑后幸存下来，他对所发生的事情感到“愤怒和困惑”。

2026年10月7日，克丽斯塔·派克的律师兰迪·斯皮维在田纳西州纳什维尔的一家法院外接受记者采访。[塞思·赫拉尔德/路透社]

田纳西州女子克丽斯塔·派克在一次失败的死刑执行中幸存下来，她的律师表示，他们的委托人在本周于美国一家医院醒来之前，几乎被拔掉了生命维持系统。

周三的新闻发布会上，代表派克的兰迪·斯派维表示，派克对所发生的事情感到“愤怒和困惑”。

名单1/3：田纳西州监狱官员在克丽斯塔·派克美国死刑执行失败后辞职

克丽斯塔·派克的律师称，她在死刑执行失败一周后发表讲话，这是其中三份名单中的第二份。律师表示，派克是在死刑执行失败一周后发表讲话的。

列表 3/3 克丽斯塔·派克在行刑后醒来：接下来会发生什么？

“周一晚上，我们了解到克丽斯塔已经脑死亡，第二天就会撤掉生命维持系统，”斯派维告诉记者。

但周二，他说：“克丽斯塔醒了过来，开始说话了。”

斯派维补充说，派克似乎不记得那次行刑未遂事件本身。据报道，她在纳什维尔的医院病房醒来后，问房间里的人：“我在哪里？”和“你们是谁？”

派克原定于9月30日被执行注射死刑。但在接受了两剂戊巴比妥钠后，她仍然活着，成为据信在美国第一个在注射死刑后幸存下来的人。

这一事件再次引发了人们对该国死刑的使用及其合法性的质疑。

批评人士长期以来一直称此类程序违反了美国宪法第八修正案，该修正案禁止“残酷和不寻常的惩罚”。

在执行死刑前，派克的律师曾以担心她的精神健康状况为由，请求减刑。她于1996年因参与谋杀同学、19岁的科琳·斯莱默而被定罪并判处死刑。

周三，她的法律团队称，她在预定的死刑执行期间与田纳西州官员进行了合作。

“他们给她扎了一个小时的针，一针接一针地扎她的胳膊，她一直都很友善和有礼貌，然后她感觉到了戊巴比妥的灼烧感，”斯派维说。

“然后她醒来时发现自己在一家医院里，周围都是她不认识的人。”

虽然致命注射原本应该注入派克的静脉，但专家推测戊巴比妥钠却积聚在了她手臂的组织中。斯派维补充说，她的手臂和双手仍然严重肿胀，布满了水疱。

目前尚不清楚田纳西州是否会再次尝试处决派克。

但斯派维表示，他和派克的其他律师将再次寻求减刑，理由是她在执行死刑失败期间遭受了痛苦。

周三，为了应对可能进行的法律诉讼，纳什维尔法官伊阿什亚·迈尔斯下令该州保存死刑执行过程中的证据，包括毒品、注射器和静脉输液管，以及录音和官员之间的任何通信记录。

自那次死刑未遂事件发生后，田纳西州共和党州长比尔·李也下令停止执行其他死刑判决。该州原定于今年晚些时候执行另一次死刑。

“执行依法判处的刑罚是州政府最严肃的职责之一，田纳西州人民希望执行刑罚的方式不仅合法合宪，而且有效，”李在一份声明中说。

在这次失败的死刑执行之后，田纳西州最高监狱官员、惩教署署长弗兰克·斯特拉达宣布他将于本月辞职。

派克的注射死刑并非今年田纳西州唯一一起执行死刑失败的案例。

州长李给予托尼·卡拉瑟斯一年缓刑，官员们原定于 2026 年 5 月执行死刑。但经过一个小时的尝试，他们未能找到静脉注射戊巴比妥钠，因此死刑被暂停。

然而，其他一些州已经表示，尽管发生了田纳西州的事件，他们仍将继续执行死刑案件。

尽管46岁的贾马尔·霍华德的律师以派克的死刑执行失败为由提出上诉，但德克萨斯州一家法院拒绝阻止原定于周三执行的戊巴比妥死刑。

反对死刑的人士认为，死刑执行会造成不必要的痛苦。据报道，在派克的案例中，她在行刑过程中踢掉了盖在身上的床单，并表示自己感到疼痛。

在预定执行死刑之前，派克曾警告当局很难在她的手臂上找到静脉，甚至要求用枪决的方式处决。